Why You Should Use Loops Even
When You ' re Not a DJ
Whether you are a DJ or not , as long as you like groove oriented music , loops will be very useful for you . A lot of people have a misconception that grooves are only for DJs , but that couldn ’ t be further from the truth . Here are five reasons why .
You can forget about your DAWs metronome Let ’ s face it , while metronomes are very important , nobody really gets musically inspired by their constant “ tick-tick ”. If you buy a DAW today , it will most probably come with a vast selection of drum and percussion loops that are an absolute blast . Some of these even have grooves and swing that can bring a beat to life and fuel your creativity . And since most of them stretch with tempo changes , you can experiment with locking in the ideal tempo while still playing real drum sounds , rather than the relentless “ tick-tick ”.
Helps with percussion A lot of rock musicians like to add the sound of a tambourine in the background of their songs . If you are one of those and if you diligently set up a mic , check the levels , play the part , adjust the timing as needed after recording , and spend at least 30 minutes on the process , you will realize that you actually play a small number of tambourine parts , augmented with the occasional flourish . It ’ s much more pragmatic to use loops . Just grab the appropriate loop , rearrange if necessary for more variety , drag in a couple of flourishes , and you are done .
When you need to speed up or slow down a section to accommodate the new timing , anchor your hit points in absolute time and change the tempo so that the loops follow . As long as the tempo changes are not too extreme , the fidelity will be fine .
You can use acoustic drums instead of MIDI You don ' t play drums , you don ' t have a drum set in your home studio , and you wouldn ' t have a way to put a mic on even if you did , or if you had the budget to fly on Mike Portnoy , Virgil Donati , Mike Mangini , Flo Mounier , Dave Wekl or other world-class drummers . So you use MIDI drum sounds , but when trying to make music genres that rely on the real thing , electronic versions often fall short . Well , you might be surprised how easy it is to adapt acoustic drum loops to your songs . For example , some drum plugins stock 10,000 loops ( luckily with an internal search engine ) from the aforementioned drummers and others , as well as 100 drum kits with multiple samples and MIDI editing if you prefer to go that route .
Loops are very versatile Interestingly , some people who consider the use of loops ( you can find a lot of loops online for free ) to be somehow “ cheating ” would not think twice about hiring a studio musician to perform a part they cannot perform . Well , think of loops like studio musicians - they arrive on time , they don ' t complain , and they play the same part over and over again , perfectly , while you figure out the best way to tailor it to fit your music . And while it ' s doubtful anyone in your neighborhood will record music parts for you , a library of loops can , even at four in the morning
Loops help with video soundtracks Anyone who has worked on soundtracks knows that they seem to be an “ interesting ” endeavour to say the least . They will ask you to finish it quickly and one day later , they will tell you that a major chunk of the footage was left on the editing room floor . Loops to the rescue , because they can follow tempo changes .
The Score Magazine
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